from the death of Bishop Andrews and Archbishop Harsâ—et then he had taken those of York on this last occasion But I hope onâ— Author was somewhat more then half asleep when this note fell from him for otherwise me thinks he could not be so much a stranger to the affairs of the Church as not to know that ever since the time of William the second for so long that ill custome hath continued nothing hath been more ordinary with the Kings of England then to enter on the temporalities of all vacant Bishoppricks whether it be by death promotion or what way soever and to receive the mean profits of them till the new Bishop after the doing of his homage hath taken out a writ for their restitution 47. Our Author now drawes toward an end and for a conclusion to his Book contrary in a manner to all former Precedents addresseth an Epistle To the Religious Learned and judicious Reader In which he feeds himself and his Reader also with the hopes of this that there are no more Errors to be found in his History then those which have been noted in the Animadversions This I will add saith he for thus he doth bespeak his Reader for my comfort and thy better confidence in reading my Book that according to the received rule in Law Exceptio firmat Regulam in non exceptis it followeth proportionably that Animadversio firmat Regulam in non Animadversis And if so by the Tacit consent of my Adversary himself all other passages in my Book are allowed sound and true save those few which fall under his reproof But if so as it is much otherwise the passages which fall under the Reproof of the Animadvertor are not so few as to give the Reader any confidence that all the rest are to be allowed for sound and true Non omnem molitor quae fluit unda videt as the Proverb hath it The Miller sees not all the water which goes under his Mill much of it passing by without observation and if the blind eat many a fly as the English Adage saith he doth he may swallow many an Error also without discovery when he first finds them in his dish And so it was with me in the Review of our Authors History the second perusal whereof presented many Errors to my consideration which had not been noted in the first And since the publishing of the Animadversions I have fallen accidentally upon divers others not observed before of which I shall advertise him in a private way whensoever he shall please to desire it of me 48. And here I thought I should have ended but the Appealant puts me to the answering of two Objections against the Bishops having place in Parliament as a third Estate Which two Objections may be Answered without being heard as being made against the clear letter of the Law the express words of several Statutes and Records of Parliament as also against the positive determination of Sir Edward Cook the most learned Lawyer of our times whose judgement in that point may seem to carry the authority of a Parliament with it because by Order of this Parliament his Books were appointed to be Printed But since the Appealant doth require it in the way of curtesie I will serve him in it as well as I can at the present without engaging my self in any further enquiry after those particulars And first as to the Bishop of Man the reason why he hath no vote in Parliament is not because he doth not hold his Lands per integram Baroâ—iam as is implyed in the Objections but because he doth not hold his Lands of the King at all The Bishop of Man is Homiger to the Earl of Darby as the chief Lord of the Island of his sole nomination and dependance and therefore there could be no reason which might induce the King of England to admit those Bishops to a place and vote in Parliament who held nothing of them and of whose dutie and affections they could promise little And so much I remember to have read in the learned Work of Francis Mason de Ministerio Anglicano building therein if my memory do not too much fail me upon the judgement and authority of the learned Andrews in his Elaborate Apologie against Cardinal Bellarmine To the second Objection That some Statutes have been made absente or Exclusâ— clero which notwithstanding are esteemed to be good and valid therefore that the Bishops sit not in the Parliament as a third Estate I shall for brevity sake refer the Appealant to my answer to the Book called The stumbling Block c. cap. 5. Sect. 7. 8. c. where he shall find the point discoursed more at large then these short Remembrances can admit of I shall onely now adde thus much that in the Protestation made by the twelve Bishops which was enrolled amongst the Records of that house they thereby entred their Protest against all such Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and determinations as in themselves null and of none effect which in their absence since the 27th of December 1641. as were already passed and likewise against such as should hereafter pass in that most honourable house during the time of their forced and violent absence from it c. Which certainly so many Grave Learned and Judicious men would never have done if they had not looked upon themselves in the capacity of a third Estate according to the Laws of the Realm exprest in several Acts and Records of Parliament And whereas he requests me when my hand is in to answer an Objection taken from a passage in the Parliament at Northampton under Hen. the second in which the Bishops claimed their place not as Bishops but Barons Non sedemus hiâ— Episcopi sed Barones c. it must be understood with reference to the case which was then before them in which they thought themselves better qualified to pass their judgements in the capacity of Barons then in that of Bishops For that the Bishops sat in Parliament in a double capacity will be no hard matter to evince considering that they sat as Bishops in all publick Councels before the entrance of the Normans and that when William the Conqueror changed their tenure from Frank Almoigne to Bâ—râ—nage he rather added some new capacity to them which before they had not then took any of their old Capacities from them which before they had But this dispute is out of doors as the case now stands which makes me willing to decline all such further trouble which the Appealant seems desirous to impose upon me 50. That which I have already done in Order to his satisfaction is more then he can challenge in the ordinary course of Disputation or hath deserved at my hands in the managing of it He tells us in the Third Chapter of his Apparatus that finding himselfe necessitated to return an answer to the Animadversions he was resolved first to abstain from all Rayling that being a
common sense import though I desire that my words should be understood alwaies in the litteral sense or in any other sense that you shall give them as afore was said which being premised I would fain see how you prove the point which you have so blindly undertaken Marry say you I deal with M. Burton as the Puritans Oracle pag. 152. their superintendent Champion c. as in my Preface to that Book and my desâ—râ—ptiâ—n of him is that he followeth Illyricus in his Doctrines de providentia predestinatione gratia libero arbitrio c. pag. 182. Stay here a little M Baxter do you not tell us in the former part of your Letter that you had not seen that Book against M. Burton above 20. years and therefore condemned your temerity in mentioning me on the trust of your memory after so long time and can you now direct us not only unto single words Oracle Superintendent Champion c. and to the several pages where they are Can you direct us to a marginal Note pag. 182. relating to a Book called Necessaria Responsio and to the folios of that Book viz. pag. 82. with pag. 82 84. 85. or tell your Readâ—â— in what part or page of that Book he may find D Jackson acquitted from maintaining Arminianism and the Puritans condemned for wresting the Articles of the Church pag. 122 123. Can you do this and yet with confidence declare that it is 20. years since you saw that Book Assuredly your memory must be very good in remembring so many single words and particular passages with the very places where they are after the space of twenty years or very bad in not remembring that the description of a Puritan which you had charged on Peter Heylyn was to be found in M. Dow and perhaps not there Quid verba audiam cum facta videam You tell us that you have not seen that book this twenty years and here is evidence enough that you have it by you for I cannot think that you clogged your Note Book with such petit remembrances unless the term of twenty years may pass in your account for no more then yesterday 13. But be your memory good or bad I am sure your Logick is far worse none of old Baxter's this then your memory can be The Charge you are to prove is this That with the late Prelates a Puritan was either a Non-Conformist or a Conformist that in Doctrine was no Arminian of which sort Peter Heylyn gave us a description by their opinions By which we are to understand if you mean nothing else but what your words in the common sense import that the Puritans of whom the said sorry fellow called Peter Heylyn hath given us a description by their opinions is such a Conformist who in Doctrine is no Arminian This is the point you are to prove and for the proof of this you instance in M. Burton of Fryday-Street who though he was no Arminian in point of Doctrine yet was he so far from being a Conformist that since the hanging up of Penry at Saint Thomas of Waterings where he Preached before a very thin audience on the top of the Ladder as Johannes Stow informeth us Anno 1593. There never was a more profest outragious violent and seditious Non-Conformist in the Church of England Now if the Puritans be there described by M. Burton as you say they are or if the Reader understand me as describing Puritans only because I have so often given the person described that name as I am willing that he should and you say he must It must needs follow thereupon that the Puritans against whom I write cannot be such Conformists as are no Arminians but such notorious Non-Conformists as their Oracle and Champion M. Burton was There was an old distinction made by I know not whom betwixt the Knaves Puritan and the Knave Puritans the Knaves Puritan being one that made a conscience of his waies and followed not profane and licentious persons in their ungodly way of living But the Knave Puritans were those who under pretence of long Prayer devoured widdows houses and wilfully opposed the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church and clamorously cried down the Lordly Prelacy and jurisdiction of the Bishops that they might themselves Lord it over Gods people in their several Parishes and sit as so many petit Popes in their Classical Sessions These and no others are the Puritans against whom I write not against those who walk unblamably before God and man nor against those who following Calvin's judgment in the matter of predestination and the points concomitant conform themselves unto the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England here by Law established of which last sort were many Bishops Deanes Dignitaries in Cathedral Churches whose parts piety I admire as much as any whom it had been a madness to condemn for Puritans such Puritanism and their several dignities being inconsistent 14. So then the Puritan whom I aim at in the person of M Burton is a notorious Non-Conformist and whither I had described him or them we are next to see And my description of him as you tell us containâ—th first that hee follows Illyricus in his Doctrines dâ— providentia predestinatione gratia libero arbitrio c. If it conteins that first as you say it doth it must needs contain something in the second third and fourth places which you are willing not to speak of For if â—ou look into the place by you cited pag. 882. you will there find that M. Burton is not only said to be a follower of Illyricus in his Doctrines de providentia c. but to have also followed him in his fiery nature and seditious principles one of which was Principes potius metu seditionum terrendos quam vel minimum pacis causa indulgendum That Princes should be rather terrified with the feares of tumults then any thing should be yielded to for quietness sake All which being laid together as it stands in your Author falls so much short of being a description of such Puritans as being conformable to the Church in Rites and Ceremonies are notwithstanding no Arminians in point of Doctrine which you have charged on Peter Heylyn that it conteineth not such a principal part of that description as you have laid on D. Dow For besides that the Puritans hold the same opinions with those who follow Calvin's judgment in some controverted points before remembred they hold also some opinions of their own that is to say it is not lawful to use the Cross in Baptism or to bow at the blessed name of Jesus which M. Burton calls Cross-worship and Jesu-worship nor to be uncovered in the time of Divine Service to wear the Surplice kneel at the Communion to marry with the Ring and finally to stand up at the Gospels and the Gloria Patri In all which he and they were as much opposed by those of the Conformable Clergy who follow Calvin's
these passages these breathings of M. Burton in his Apologie and Appeal In which he calls on the Nobility To rouse up their spirits and magnanimous courage for the truth and to stick close to God and the King in helping the Lord and his anointed against the mighty upon the Judges to draw forth the sword of Justice to defend the Laws against such Innovators who as much as in them lieth divide between the King and People upon the Courtiers to put too their helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion and faithful Ministers then suspended from the jaws of those devouring Wolves and tyrannizing lordly Prelates c. Upon the people generally to take notice of the desperate practises innovations and Popish designs of these Antichristian Prelates and to oppose and redress them with all their force and power And yet as if this had not been enough to declare his meaning he breaths more plainly in his Libel called The News from Ipswich in which he lets us know That till his Majesty shall hang up some of these Romish Prelates Inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibbeonites once did the seven sons of Saul we can never hope to abate any of Gods plagues c. What think you of these breathings of Buchannan in his book De Jure Regni apud Scotos where he adviseth Regum interfectoribus proemia discerni c. that Rewards should publickly be decreed for those who kill a Tyrant and the meekest King that ever was shall be called a Tyrant if he oppose the setting up of the holy Discipline as usually are proposed to those who kill Wolves or Bears And finally what think you of these breathings in one of the brethren who preaching before the House of Commons in the beginning of the long Parliament required them in the name of the Lord to shew no mercie to the Prelatical party their wives and children but that they should proceed against them as against Babylon it self even to the taking of their children and dashing their brains against the stones Call you these holy breathings the holy breathings after Christ which you so applaud Or are they not such breathings rather aâ— the Scripture attributes to Saul before his conversion who in the ninth chapter of the Acts is said to be Spirator minarum caedis adversus discipules Domini that is to say that he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. 27. As are their breathings such also is their meekness their humility their hatred of known sin their heavenly mindedness and that self-denial which you so commend for of their love to God I can take no notice As well as they are known unto you may you not be deceived in your opinion of them and take that first for a real and Christian meekness which is but counterfeit and pretended for their worldly ends Doth not our Saviour tell us of a sort of men false-preachers seducers and the like which should come in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves What means our Savior by sheeps clothing but that innocence meekness and humility which they should manifest and express in their outward actions it being the observation of Thomas Aquinas that grand dictator in the Schools In nomine â—vis innocentiam simplicitatem per totam Scripturam designarâ— And yet for all this fair appearance they were inwardly but ravening Wolves greedily thiâ—sting for the prey and hungry after spoil and rapine Astutam rapido gestanâ—es pectore vulpem in the Poets language This you may find exemplified in the Sect of the Anabaptists who at their first appearance disguised themselves in such an habit of meekness and humility and Christian patience as gained them great affection amongst the people but when they were grown unto a head and had got some power into their hands what lusts what slaughter what unmerciful cruelties did they not commit when Tyrannie and K. John of Leyden did so rage in Munster But because possible you may say that these are not the men whom your character aims at tell me what spirit of meeknesse you find in Calvin when he called Mary Q. of England by the name of Proserpine and tells us of her that she did superare omnes diabolos that all the Devils in hell were not half so mischievous or what in Beza when he could find no better title for Mary Q. of Scots then those of Athaliah and Medea the one as infamous in Scripture for her barbarous cruelty as the other is in heathen Writers or what of Peury Vdal and the rest of the Rabble of Mar Prelates in Queen Elizabeths time to whom there never was the like generation of railing Rabshakehs since the beginning of the world Or what of Dido Clariâ—s who calls King James for neither Kings nor Queens can escape them intentissimum Evangelii hostem the most bitter enemy of the Gospel and I say nothing of the scandalous reports and base reproaches which were laid upon his son and successor by the tongues and pens of too many others of that party 28. Look upon their humility and you shall find them exalting themselvs above Kings Princes and all that is called God the Pope and they contending for the supreme power in the Church of Christ For doth not Traverse say expresly in his Book of Discipline Huic Disciplinae omnes principes fasces suas submittere necesse est that Kings and Princes must submit their Scepters to the Rod of that Discipline which Calvin had devised and his followers here pursued so fiercely Have not some others of them declared elsewhere that Kings and Princes must lay down their Scepters at the Churches feet yea and lick up the dust thereof understanding always by the Church their one holy Discipline did they not carry themselves so proudly in the time of that Queen whom they compared to a sluttish housewife who swept the middle of the room but left the dust behinde the door and in every corner that being asked by a grave Counsellor of State whether the removal of some Ceremonies would not serve the turn they answered with insolence enough ne ungulam esse relinquendam that they would not leave so much as an hoof behind And that you may perceive they have been as good at it in Scotland as ever they have been in England Take here the testimony of King James who had very good experience of them in the Preface to his Basilicon Doron where telling us what he means by Puritans he describes them thus I give this stile saith he to such brain-sick and Headie Preachers as refusing to be called Anabaptists participate too much with their humours not only agreeing with the general rule of all Anabaptists in the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that swear not to all their phantasies in making for every particular question of the Policie of the
you have attributed to them as far as the effects can shew the heart to others I have before took some pains to let you see how easily men may be mistaken when they behold a man through the spectacles of partiality and defection or take the visible appearances for invisible graces the fraudulent art fiâ—â—s and deceits of men for the coelestial gifts of God And as for that which you have inferred hereupon viz. that if he love them he will scarcely take my dealing well You should first prove the Premises before you venter upon such a strange conclusion and not condemn a Christian brother upon Ifs and Ands. 32. In the next place you please to tell me that you are not an approver of the violence of any of them and that you do not justifie M. Burtons way and that you are not of the mind of the party that I most oppose in all their Discipline as a Book now in the Press will give the world an account In the two first parts of which Character which you have given us of your self as I have great reason to commend your moderation and hope that you will make it good in your future actions so I can say little to the last not having heard any thing before of the Book you speak of nor knowing by what name to call for it when it comes abroad But whereas you tell us in the next that you are sure the Church must have unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government or not at all I take you at your word hold there and we shall soon agree together Vnity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government no man likes better then my self bring but the same affections with you and the wide breach which is between us in some of the causes which we mannage on either side will be suddenly closed but then you must be sure to stand to the word ancient also and not to keep your self to simplicity only if unity and charity will content you in the ancient Doctrine in the simplicity thereof without subsequent mixtures of the Church I know no doctrine in the Church more pure and ancient then that which is publickly held forth by the Church of England in the book of Articles the Homilies and the Chatechism authorized by Law under the head or rubrick of Confirmation Of which I safely may affirm as S. Augustine doth in his Tract or Book Ad Marcellinum if my memory fail not his qui contradicit â—ut à Christi fide alienus est aut est haereticus that is to say he must be either an Infidei or an Heretick who assenteth not to them If unity and charity in the simplicity of Worship be the thing you aim at you must not give every man the liberty of worshiping in what form he pleaseth which destroys all unity nor cursing many times in stead of praying which destroyes all charity the ancient and most simple way of Worship in the Church of God was by regular forms prescribed for the publick use of Gods people in their Congregations and not by unpremeditated indigested prayers which every man makes unto himself as his fancy shall lead him which I hope I have sufficiently proved in my Tract of Liturgies And if Set Forms of Worship are to be retained as I think they be you will not easily meet with any which hath more in it of the ancient simplicity of the Primitive times then that by which we did officiate for the space of fourscore years and more in the Church of England And finally if the ancient simplicity in Government be the point you drive at what Government can you find more pure and ancient then that of Bishops of which I shall only present you with that Character of it which I find in that Petition of the County of Rutland where it is said to be That Government which the Apostles left the Church in that the three ages of Martyrs were governed by that the thirteen ages since have alwayes gloried in by their succession of Bishops from the Apostles proving themselves members of the Catholick and Apostolick Church that our Laws have established so many Kings and Parliaments have protected into which we were baptized as certainly Apostolical as the observation of the Lords day as the distinction of Books Apocryphal from Canonical as that such Books were written by such Evangelists and Apostles as the consecration of the Eucharist by Presbyters c. An ample commendation of Episcopal Government but such as exceedeth not the bounds of truth or modesty Stand to these grounds for keeping unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government in the Church of God and you shall see how cheerfully the Regal and Prelatical party whom you most oppose wil join hands with you and embrace you with most dear affections 33. But you begin to shrink already and tell me that if I will have men live in peace as brethren our Union must be Law or Ceremonies or indifferent Forms This is a pretty speculation I must needs confesse but such as would not passe for practicable in any well-governed Common-wealth unless it be in the Old Vtopia or the New Atlantis or the last discovered Oceana For how can men possibly live in peace as brethren where there is no Law to limit their desires or direct their actions Take away Law and every man will be a Law unto himself and do whatsoever seemeth best in his own eyes without control then Lust will be a law for one Felony will be a law for another Perjury shall be held no crime nor shall any Treason or Rebellion receive their punishments for where there is no law there is no transgression and where there is no transgression there can be no punishment punishments being only due for the breach of Laws Thus is it also in the service and worship of Almighty God which by the hedge of Ceremonies is preserved from lying open to all prophaneness and by Set Forms be they as indifferent as they will is kept from breaking out into open confusion God as S. Paul hath told us is the God of Order not of Confusion in the Churches If therefore we desire to avoid confusion let us keep some order and if we would keep order we must have some forms it being impossible that men should live in peace as brethren in the house of God where we find not both David hath told us in the Psalms that Jerusalem is like a City which is at unity in it self and in Jerusalem there were not only solemn Sacrifices set Forms of blessing and some significant Ceremonies prescribed by God but Musical Instruments and Singers and linnen vestures for those Singers and certain hymns and several times and places for them ordained by David Had every Ward in that City and every Street in that Ward and every Family in that Street and perhaps every
hunts the Hare is the Hare which is hunted so that although the Religion of the Church of Rome had defined the Deposition of Kings by the Pope for denying Transubstantiation c. as it never did yet could not the Popish Religion upon that account be called Rebellion Rebellion by the Law of England 25. Edw. 3. c. 2. is defined to be an actual levying of War against our Soveraign Lord the King in hâ— Realm or an adhering to the Kings enemies in his Realm giving to them aid and comfort in the Realm or elsewhere And by the Civil Law all those qui arripiant arma contra eum cujus jurisdictioni subditi sunt who tak up arms against such persons to whose Authority they are subject are declared to be Rebels for which see Spigelus in his Lexicon of the terms of Law But that Religion which defineth the Deposition of Princes by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. is not an actual levying of War against our Soveraign Lord the King in his Realm or an adhering c.. Nor the the taking up of Arms against such persons to whose Authority they are subject Therefore that Religion which defineth the Deposition of Princes c. neither is really or nominally to be called Rebellion if either the laws of England or the Civil laws do rightly understand what Rebellion is as I think they do And whereas you hope to mend the matter by calling it a Rebellion doctrinal you make it worse on your side then it was before For besides that there is no such thing as Rebell on doctrinal though some Doctrines there may be too frequently preached for inciting the people to Rebellion you find not the word Doctrinal in the proposition which you have undertook to prove and wh en presents it self simply to you in these words that the Religion of the Papists is Rebellion 37. Such being the faultinesse of your Mejor we will next consider whether the Assumption or your Minor be any thing more evident then your Major was Your Minor is that the Popish Religion is such that is to say such a Religion that defineth the Deposition of Kings by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. This is the matter to be proved and you prove it thus That which is defined by a Pope and General Councel is the Popish Religion But the aforesaid Doctrine is defined by a Pope and an approved General Councel viz at the Laterane under Innocent the 3. Erge c. This makes it evident indeed that you never saw the Cannons nor Decrees of the Laterane Councel and possibly your learning may not lie so high but that you took this passage upon trust from some ignorant hand which had seen them as little as your self Your Major I shall grant for true but nothing can be falser or mere unable to be proved then your Minor is Consult the Acts of that Councel search into all Editions of them and into the Commentaries of such Cannonists as have writ upon them and you shall neither find in the one or the other that the Deposition of Kings and Princes by the Pope was defined to be lawful for that I take to be your meaning either for denying Transubstantiation or for any other cause whatsoever Most true it is that the word Transubstantiation then newly hammered on the Anvil by some of the Schoolmen to expresse that carnal presence of Christ in the Sacrament as they then maintained was first received in this Councel and received then ad â—vitandaâ— haereâ—icorum tergiversationes as my Author hath it for avoiding the wranglingâ— and fallacious shifts which Hereticks otherwise might use But that the word was made such an Idol in this Councel that all Christian Kings and Princes which would noâ— fall down and worship it were to be deposed hath neither colour nor foundation in the Acts of that Councel And therefore I wil first lay down the Canon which I think you aim at for otherwise there is none in that Councel which you can pretend to and then acquaint as well with the occasion and the meaning of it and your own mistakings 38. And first the words of the Canon as these now stand in the Tomes of the Councels are these that follow Si quis Dominus temporalis requisitus monitus ab Ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica foeditate per Metropolitanum com provinciales Episcopos excommunicationis â—inculo innodetur Etsi satisfacere contempserit infra annum significetur hoc summo Poniifici ut ex tunc ipse vassallos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutos terram exponant catholicis occupandam qui eam exterminatis haereticis â—ine ulla contradictione possideant in fidei puritate conservent salvo jure domini principalis dummodo super hoc ipse nullum praestet obstaculum nec aliquod impedimentum oppâ—nat eadem nihilominus lege servata circa eos qui non habent Dominos principales such is the Canon or Decree And this was the occasion of it The Albigenses and Waldenses differing in many points from the received opinions of the Church of Rome and constantly denying the Popes Supremacy amongst other things some years before the calling of this Councel was grown to a very great power and insolencie countenanced therein by the two last Raimonds Earls of Tholouse and some of the Petit Lords of Gascoyn all which though absolute enough in their several Territories in respect of their vassals but were fudataries either to the Empire or the Kings of France as the Lords in chief for the reduction of these Albingenses to the Church of Rome Dominick a Spaniard the Founder afterwards of the Order of Dominical Fryars used his best endeavours in the way of Argument and perswasion but failing of his design therein he instigated Pope Innocent the 3. to call this Councel Anno 1215. and the Prelates there assembled to passe this Canon for the suppressing both of them and their Patrons also for having summed up the principle heads of that Religion which was then publickly maintained in the Church of Rome they framed an Oath to be taken by all secular Magistrates ut haereticos universos ab Ecclesia denotatos bona fide pro viribus ex terminare studeant to use their best endeavours for the exterminating of all Hereticks that is to say all such as did oppose those Doctrines before laid down out of their dominions and then it followeth as before si quis vero dominus temporalis c that if any Temporal Lord being thereunto required by the Church should neglect to purge his Territories of that Infection he should be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and other Bishops of that Province in which he lived and if he gave no satisfaction within the year notice thereof was to be given to the Pope that thereupon he might absolve his vassals from their Allegiance and give their Countries to the next Catholick Invador
who on the rooting out of the Hereticks should possess the same to the end that he might keep it in the holy Faith But this was with a salvojure a preservation of the Rights and Interests of the Lords in chief if they gave no hindrance to the work And with this clause that it should after be extended to those also which had no Lord Paramount superiour to them According unto which decree the Albigenses and their Patrons were warred on by the Kings of France till both sides were wearied with the War and compounded it at last upon these conditions viz. That Alphonso younger brother to King Lewis the 9. of France should marry Joan daughter and heir to the last Raimond and have with her the full possession of the Country after his decease provided also that if the said parties died without issue the whole estate should be escheated to the Crown as in fine it did An. 1270. 39. This the occasion of the Canon and this the meaning and the consequent of it but what makes this to the Deposing of Kings and such supreme Princes as have no Lord Paramount above them For if you mean such inferiour Princes as had Lords in chief your argument was not home to the point it aimed at If you alledge that Emperours and Kings as well as such inferiour Princes are hooked in the last clause of viz eadem nihilominus lege servata circa eos qui dominos non habent principales I answer with the learned Bishop of Rochester in his book De Potestate Papae â— 1. c. 8. clausulam istam à Parasito al quo Pontificiae tyrannidis ministro assutam esse that it was patched unto the end of the decree by some Parasite or other Minister of the See of Rome And this he proves by several reasons as namely that Christian Kings and Emperours are nâ—â— of such low esteem as to be comprehended in those general words qui dominos non habent principales without being specially designed and distinguished by their soveraign Titles Secondly that if any such thing had been intended it is not likely that the Embassadors of such Kings and Emperors who were then present in that Councel would ever have consented to it but rather have protested against it and caused their Protestation to be registred in the Acts thereof in due form of Law Thirdly In one of their Rescripts of the said Pope Innocent by whom this Councel was confirmed in which â—e doth plainly declare That when inferiour persons are named or pointed at in any of his Commissions majores digniores sub generali clausula non intelligantur includi that is to say that persons of more eminent rank are not to be understood as comprehended in such general clauses Adde hereunto that in the manner of the proceeding prescribed by this Canon such temporal Lords as shall neglect to purge their Countries of the filth of Heresies were to be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and other Bishops of that Province per Metropolitanum ceteros com provinciales Episcopos as the Canon hath it before the Pope could take any cognizance of the cause And I conceive that no man of reason can imagine that the Metropolitane and Provincial Bishops could or durst exercise any such jurisdiction upon those Christian Kings and Emperours under whom they lived I grant indeed that some of the more turbulent Popes did actually excommunicate and as much as in them lay depose some Christian Kings and Emperors sometimes by arming their own Subjects against them and sometimes giving their Estates and Kingdomes to the next Invador But this makes nothing to your purpose most of those turbulencies being acted before the sitting of this Councel none of them by authority from any Councel at all but carried on by them ex plenitudine potestatis under pretence of that unlimited power which they had arrogated to themselves over all the world and exercised too frequently in these Western parts 40. Such is the Argument by which you justifie M. Burton in his first position viz. That the Popish Religion is Rebellion and may it not be proved by the very same argument that the Calvinian Religion is Rebellion also Calvin himself hath told us in the closes of his Institutions that the 3 Estates in every Kingdome Pareus in his Comment on Rom 13. that the inferiour Magistrates and Buchannan in his book Dejure Regni that the people have a power to curb and controll their Kings and in some cases as in that of Male-administration to depose him also which is much as any of the Popes Parasites have ascribed unto him If you object that these are only private persons and speak their own opinions not the sense of the Churches I hope you will not say that Calvin is a private person who sate as Pope over the Churches of his platform whose writings have been made the Rule and Canon by which all men were to frame their judgments and whose authority in this very point hath been made use of for the justifying of Rebellious actions For when the Scots Commissioners were commanded by Queen Elizabeth to give a reason of their proceedings against their Queen whom not long before they had deposed from the Regal Throne they justified themselves by the authority of Calvin whereby they endeavoured to prove as my Author hath it That the Popular Magistrates are appointed and made to moderate and keep in order the excesse and unrulinesse of Kings and that it was lawful for them to put the Kings that be evil and wicked into prison and also to deprive them of their kingdoms Such instances as this we may find too many enough to prove that none of the three above mentioned though the two last were private persons delivered their own opinions only but the sense of the party The Revolt of the Low-Countries from the King of Spain the manâ—old embroilments made by the Hugonots in France the withholding of the Town Embden from its natural Lord the Count of Friesland the commotions in Brandenburg the falling off of the Bohemians from the house of Austria the translating of the Crown of Sweden from Sigismond K. of Poland to Charles Duke of Suderman the father of the great Gustavus the Armies thrice raised by the Scots against King Charls and the most unnatural warrs in England with the sad consequents thereof by whom were they contrived and acted but by those of the Calvinian Faction and the predominancy which they have or at the least aspired unto in their several Countries The Genevians having lead the dance in expelling their Bishop whom they acknowledged also for their temporal Prince the daughter Churches thought themselves obliged to follow their dear Mother Church in that particular and many other points of Doctrine sic instituere majores posteri imitantur as we read in Tacitus 41. But against this blow you have a Buckler and tell me that if any Protestant Writer should teach the same that
were subject to the Pope Neither indeed was there any need at that time of this Councel that any such Definitions should be made no new Heresie or any new doctrine which by them might be called Heresie being then on foot for Luther did not rise in Germany till this Counsel was ended which might create any disturbance to the peace of that Church If any such priviledges were arrogated by Pope Leo the 10. that none should be accounted members of Christ and his Church but such as were subject to the Pope which you cannot find definitively in the Acts of that Councel you must rather have looked for it in the Bulls of that Pope after Luther had begun to dispute his power and question his usurped authority over all the Church In one of which Bulls you may finde somewhat to your purpose where you shall find him saying that the Church of Rome is Mother and Mistress of all Christians and that her doctrines ought to be received of whosoever would be in the Communion of the Church If this be that you mean much good do it you with though this be rather to be taken for a Declaration then a Definition 45. But if your meaning is as perhaps it may be that the Papists Faith may be called Faction because they appropriate to themselves the name of the Church and exclude all other Christians from being members of Christ and his Church which are not subject to the Pope as indeed they do take heed you lose not more in the Hundreds then you got by the County for then it may be proved by the very same Argument if there were no other that the Puritan Faith is Faction and so to be accounted by all that know it because they do appropriate unto themselves the name of the Church as the old Affrican Scismaticks confined it intra partem Donati For proof whereof if you please to consult Bâ—shop Bancrofts book of Dangerous Positions anâ— Proceedings c. part 3. chap. 15. you will find them writing in this manner viz I know the state of this Church make known to us the state of the Church with you Our Churches are in danger of such as having been of us do renounce all fellowship with us It is long since I have heard from you saith one Blake of the state of the Church of London Another By M. West and M. Brown you shall understand the state of the Churches wherein we are A third If my offence may not be passed by without a further confessiâ—n even before God and his Churâ—h in London will I lye down and lick the dust off your feet where you may see what it is which the heavenly-mindednesse the self-denial meeknesse and Humility which the brethren aim at and confesse it c. I have received saith the fourth a Letter from you in the name of the rest of the Brethren whereby I understand your joining together in choosing my self unto the service of the Church under the Earl of Leicester I am ready to run if the Church command me according to the holy Decrees and Orders of the Discipline Lay all which hath been said together and tell me he that can my wits not being quick enough for so great a nicety whether the Papists Faith or that of the Puritans most properly and meritoriously may be counted Faction 46. The third thing in which you seem unsatisfied in what I say concerning Popery is whether it be true or not that the Popes Decretals the body of the Canon Law is to be accepted as not being abrogated which being made for the direction and reiâ—lement of the Church in general were by degrees admitted and obeyed in these parts of Christendome and are by Act of Parliament so far still in force as they oppose not the Prerogative royal or the municipal laws and statutes of this Realm of England These words I must confesse for mine owning Hist Sab. pa. 2. ch 7. p. 202. and not 210. as your Letter cites it your parenthesis being only excepâ—ed and you name it this Kingdome in stead of the Realm of England though both expressions be to one and the same effect In which you might have satisfied your self by M. Dow who as you say gives some reason for it out of a Statute of Hen. 8. But seeing you remain still unsatisfied in that particular I shall adde something more for your satisfaction In order whereunto you may please to know that in the Stat. 29. Hen. 8. ch 19. commonly called the Statute of the submission of the Clergy it is said expresly First that the Clergie in their convocation promised the King in verbo Saâ—erdoris not to enact or execute any new Canons but by his Majesties royal assent and by his authority first obtained in that behalf and secondly that all such Canons Constitutions Ordinances and Synodals Provincial as were made before the said submission which were not contrary or repugnant to the Laws Statutes and Customes of this Realm nor to the dammage or hurt of the Kings Prerogative Royal were to be used and executed as in former times By which last clause the Decretal of preceding Popes having been admitted into this Land and by several Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England and the main body of the Canon-law having for a long time been accounted for a standing rule by which all proceedings in the Courts Ecclesiastical were to be regulated and directed remain still in force and practice as they had done formerly But then you are to know withall that they were no longer to remain in force and practice then till the said preceding Canons and Constitutions as appears by the said Act of Parliament should be viewed and accommodated to the use of this Church by 32. Commissioners selected out of the whole body of the Lords and Commons and to be nominated by the King But nothing being done therein during the rest of the Kings reign the like authority was granted to King Edw. 6. 3. 4. Edw 6. c. 11. And such a progresse was made in it that a Sub-committee was appointed to review all their said former Canons and Constitutions and to digest such of them into form and order as they thought most fit and necessary for the use of this Church Which Sub committee consisted of eight persons only that is to say Thomas Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Lord Bishop of Eli Dr. Richard Cox the Kings Almoner Peter Martyr his Majesties professor for Divinity William May and Rowland Taylor Doctors of the Law John Lucas and Richard Gooderick Esquires who having prepared and digested the whole work into form and order were to submit the same to the rest of the 32. and finally to be presented to the King for his Royal Assent and confirmation And though the said Sub-committee had performed their parts as appears by the Book entituled REFORMATIO LEGUM ECCLESIASTICARUM ex authoritate primum Regis HENRICI VIII inchâ—aâ—a Deinde
Bishop it is distinctly called an Order all which he could not chuse but see in that very Chapter of the Book called Respondit Petrus in which he finds me questioning the Lord Primates Iudgement touching the universality of Redemption by the death of Christ The Books confirmed by Act of Parliament in the 5th and 6th of Edw. 6. Repealed in the first yeare of Queen Mary continuing notwithstanding in use and practise for the first seven years of Queen Elizabeth and reconfirmed by Parliament the next year after upon occasion of a difference between Bonâ—er the late bloody Bishop of London and Horn then Bishop of Winchester His Grace had therefore very good Reason not to change his judgement and to press very hard on Bishop Hall not to wave that point for which he stands censured by our Adversary p. 24. and to insist upon it more then at other times when the Scotish Presbyterians had began to revive the question for which he stands condemned also p 25. 23. But see the Candor of the man and how like he seems to Aesops Dog when he lay in the Manger not giving the Arch-Bishop a good word himselfe nor suffering any other to do it without snarling at him I had signified in my first Letter that the Arch-Bishops memory was too precious amongst all that loved the Church of England to suffer him to be so defamed and by such a person Your Adversary doth not deny because he cannot that in many things he had deserved well of the Vniversity but will not yield himself convinced that his memory should be so precious as my Letter intimates to all that love the Church of England And a squint eye he casts on some body for a Temporizer whose design it was to ingratiate himself with great ones and could complement a Prince so highly as to style himself his Creature and the workmanship of his hands But who it is whom he so decyphereth or whether he means any one man or not but onely casts abroad his censures as Boyes throw their stones without any proper aim or object but the love of the sport I am not able to find out in my best remembrance Passing by therefore such Aenigma's as I cannot unriddle I must needs take notice how he applyes the Character to him of which Isidore Pelusi gives unto one Eusebus a wretched fellow of those times and one who took upon himself the name and office of a Bishop The Character to be found in the 24. Epistle of his second Book and the Epistle recommended to my diligent Reading 23. He tells me that the Character contained therein doth two well suit with the Arch-Bishop but I find it otherwise Eusebius as the Author tells us would not know the difference between the Temple and the Church between the place of the Assembly and the Congregation sparing no cost to build repair and beautifie the one but vexing disquieting and expelling the righteous soul to many of which he had given great matter of offence or scandal dum multis offendiculis causam prebet probos viros expellere c. The same he florisheth over again in the following words concluding with this Observation That in the Primitive times when there were no Temples the Church was plentifully adorned with all heavenly Graces but that in his time the Temples were adorned beyond Moderation Ecclesia vero Canviciis Cavillis in cessitur but the poor Church reproached and reviled upon all occasions such is the Character which Isidore gives to this Eusebus But that this Character should suit too well with the late Arch-Bishop is a greater scandal then ever Eusebus gave to the weak brethren of the Church of Pelusium For will your Adversary confine the Church as some wild Affricans did of old intra partem Donati within the Conventicles and Clancular meetings of the Puritan Faction Or hath he confidence to averre that any Righteous and Religious person was expelled this Church understand me of the Church of England whom either Faction or Sedition in conformity or disobedience spiritual pride or fear of punishment did not hurry out of it Just so it was Railed out by Brother Burton in his Libel falsly called a Sermon where he affirms that the edge of Dscipiline was turned mainly against Gods people and ministers even for their virtue piety and worth and because they would not conform to their the Bishops impious Orders Just so it was once preached in a Latine Sermon at St. Maryes in Oxon by Bayley one of the old brood of Puritans in Magdalen Colledge that good and Godly men were purposely excluded from preferments there ob hoc ipsum quod pii quod boni onely because they were enclined to virtue and piety With spight and callumnie enough but not to be compared with his who so reproachfully hath handled this Renowned Prelate and the poor sequestred and ejected Clergy of the Church of England But Judas did the like before to his Lord and Master And thereupon St. Cyprian very well inferres nec nobis turpe esse pati quae passus est Christus nec illis gloriam facere quae fâ—cerat Judas 24. And here I would have ended with your puissant Adversary but that his Letter carries me to a new ingagement He tells me there that in the Historical part of his discourse he hath proved that till D. Laud sat in the Saddle our Divines of prime Note and Authority did in the five points deliver themselves consonantly to the determination of the Synod of Dort and that they were enjoyned Recantation who were known either to preach or print that which is now called Arminianism and thinks that no body can deny it for a truth infallible But first if we allow this for a good and sufficient Argument it will serve as strongly for the Papists against all those who laboured in the Reformation For what one point do we maintain against those of Rome in which the Divines of prime Note and Authority in the Church of Rome did not deliver themselves as consonantly to the preceding Doctrines of the Schoolmen there and to the subsequent determinations of the Council of Trent and for opposing which manner of Persons were constrained to a Recantation who either preacht or printed in defence of that which is now called Protestantism And 2dly if we behold the constitution of our University when D. Humphrys a moderate non-conformist but a non-conformist howsoever as M. Fuller is pleased to call him possest the Divinity Chaire for almost forty years and D. Reynolds a Rigid non-Conformist publiquely read a Divinity Lecture founded by Sir Francis Walsingham the principal Patron of the Sect as you will find in the beginning of his Lectures on the Books Apocriphal it is no marvail if we find that the Doctrine and Discipline of Calvin should be so generally received by the Students there or being so generally received that they should put all manner of disgraces upon all or any of those
your Adversary calls Arminians who constantly adhered to the determinations of the Church of England according to the Literal and Grammatical sense and the concurrent Expositions of the first Reformers I grant indeed that the Book being afterwards re-printed was dedicated with a long Epistle to Arch-Bishop Bancroft But that intituleth him no more to any of the propositions or opinions which are there maintained then the like Dedication of a Book to an Eminent Prelate of our Nation in denyal of Original Sin intituled him to the maintenance of the same opinion which he as little could digest they are your Adversaries own words in the Epistle to the Lecturers of Brackley as the most rigidly Scotized Presbyterian Nor stays he here for rather then lose so great a Patron he will anticipate the time and make Dr. Bancroft Bishop of London almost 18 moneths before he was and in that Capacity agreeing to the Lambeth Articles An errour which he borrowed from the Church Historian who finding that Richard Lord Elect of London contributed his Assent unto them puts him down positively for Dr. Richard Bancroft without further search whereas he might have found upon further search that the meeting at Lambeth had been held on the 26th of November 1595. that D. Richard Flesher Bishop of Worcester was then the Lord Elect of London and that D. Bancroft was not made Bishop of that See till the 8th of May Anno 1697. 38. The next Considerable preferments for learning the Clergy he makes to be the two Chairs in the Universities both to be occupied by those who were profest Enemies to such Doctrines as he calls Arminianism Which if it were granted for a truth is rather to be looked on as an infelicity which befell the Church in the first choice of those Professors then to be used as an argument that she concurred with them in all points of Judgement That which was most aimed at in those times in the preferring men to the highest dignities of the Church and the chief places in the Vniversities was their zeal against Popery and such a sufficiency of learning as might enable them to defend those points on which our separation from Rome was to be maintained and the Queens interess most preserved The Popes supremacy the Mass with all the points and niceties which depended on it justification by faith the marriage of Priests Purgatory and the power of the civil Magistrate were the points most agitated And whosoever appeared right in those and did withal declare himself against the corruptions of that Church in point of manners was seldome or never looke into for his other opinions until the Church began to find the sad consequents of it in such a general tendency to innovation both in doctrine and discipline as could not easily be redressed From hence it was that we find a non-conformist though â— moderate one in the chaire at Oxon a Mother but a violent Patron of in-conformity in a Professorship in Cambridge so many hankering after Calvin in almost all the Headships of both Vniversities And it was hardly possible that it should be otherwise Such of the learned Protestants as had been trained up under the Reformation made by King Edw. 6. and had the confidence and courage to stand out to the last in the Reign of Queen Mary were either martyred in the flames or consumed in prisons or worn out with extremity of Grief and disconsolation And most of those which had retired themselves beyond the Seas returned with such a mixture of outlandish Doctrines that it was hard to find amongst them a sufficient number of men so qualified as to fill up the number of Bishops and to be dignified with the Deanrys of Cathedral Churches By means whereof there followed such an universal spreading of Calvinism over all parts of the Church that it can be no matter of wonder if the Professors of the Vniversity should be that way byassed And yet as much as the times were inclined that way I believe it will be hard if not impossible for your Antagonist to prove that those Professors did agree upon such a platform of Gods decrees as he and others of the same perswasions would fain obtrude upon us now In Cambridge D. Whitaker maintained the supra-Lapsarian way of Predestination which D. Robert Abbot of Oxon condemned in the person of Perkins And I have heard from persons of very good Esteem that Dr. Abbot himself was as much condemned at his first coming to the Chair for deviating from the moderation of his Predecessor D. Holland who seldome touched upon those points when he might avoid them For proof whereof it may be noted that five onely are remembred by Mr. Prynne in his Anti Arminianism to have maintained the Calvinian tenents in all the time of that Professor from the year 1596. to the year 1610. whereas there were no fewer then 20. who maintained them publickly in the Act as the others did in the first six years of D. Prideaux And as for D. Overal one D. Overal as your Adversary calls him in contempt afterwards Dean of S. Pauls Bishop of Lichfield and at last of Norwich that his opinion were not that for which you are said to stickle I am sure it was not that for which he contends that he did not Armintanize in all things I am sure he Calvinized in none 39. Proceed we next to the Consideration of that Argument which is derived from the censures inflicted in either Vniversity upon such as trod the Arminian path so soon as they began to discover themselves Exemplified in Cambridge by the proceedings there against Barret Barrow and Simpson in Oxon by the like against Laud Houson and Bridges Of Barret Simpson and Bridges I shall now say nothing referring you to the 23. Section of this discourse where you will find a general answer to all these particulars In the case of Dr. Laud and Dr. Houson there was somewhat else then that which was objected against the other Your Adversary tells us of D. Housons Suspention for â—â—urting onely against Calvin If so the greater the injustice and the more unjustifiable the suspension for what was Calvin unto us but that he might be flurtad at as well as another when he came cross unto the discipline or Doctrine of the Church of England But Mr. Fuller tells you more particularly that at a Sermon preached in St. Maries in Oxon he accused the Geneva Notes as guilty of mis-interpretation touching the divinity of Christ and his Mesiah-ship as if symbolizing with Arrians and Jewes against them both and that for this he was suspended by D. Robert Abbot propter Conciones publicas minus Orthodoxas offensione plenas Which though it proves this Reverend person to be rufly handled yet it makes nothing to the purpose of your mighty Adversary which was to show that some such Censures of Arminianism might be found in Oxon as had been met withal in Cambridge nor doth he speed
them and one that hated the Idolatries and superstitions of the Church of Rome with a perfect hatred This Reverend Father must not be consulted in the business for fear it might be thought that it was not to be done without him A Parish Vestry must be called by which M. Sherfield is inabled to take down the offensive Pictures and put new white Glass in the place though he be transported with a fit of unruly zeal instead of taking it down breaks it all in pieces Here then we have an Eldership erected under the Bishops nose a Reformation undertaken by an Act of the Vestry in contempt of those whom God and his Majesty and the Laws had made the sole Judges in the case An example of too sad a consequence to escape unpunished and such as might have put the people upon such a Gog as would have leâ—t but little work to the late Long Parliament Non ibi consistent Exemplaubi ceperunt sed in tenuem recepta tramitem latissime evagandi sibi viam faciunt as my Author hath it 52. But he proceeds according to his usual way of asking Questions and would fain know in what respect they may be accounted the obedient Sons of the Church who study by all their learning to take off that ignominous name of Antichrist from the Pope of Rome which had bin fastned on him by King James Archbishop Whitgift Bishop Andrews and the late Lord Primate and finally by the whole Clergy in their Convocation An. 1605. In the recital of which Proof I find not that the name of Antichrist was ever positively and and in terminis ascribed unto the Popes of Rome by any Article Homily Canon or injunction or by any other publick Monument of the Church of England which leave it to the Liberty of every man to conceive therein according as he is satisfied in his own mind and convinced in his understanding Arch-bishop Whitgift the Primate Bishop Andrews conceived the Pope to be Antichrist and did write accordingly Archbishop Laud and Bishop Mountague were otherwise perswaded in it and were not willing to exasperate those of the Popish Party by such an unnecessary provocation yet this must be accounted amongst their crimes For aggravating whereof he telleth us that the Pope was proved to be Antichrist by the Pen of King James which is more then he can prove that said it K. James used many Arguments for the proof thereof but whether they proved the point or not may be made a question Assuredly the King himself is to be looked on as the fittest Judge of his own intentions performance And he declared to the Prince at his going to Spain that he writ not that discourse concludingly but by way of Argument to the end that the Pope and his Adherents might see there was as good Arguments to prove him Antichrist as for the Pope to challenge any temporal Jurisdiction over Kings and Princes This your Antagonist might have seen in his own Canterburies doom fol. 264. Out of which Book he makes his other Argument also which proves the name of Antichrist to be ascribed unto the Pope by the Church of England because the Lords spiritual in the upper house and the whole Convocation in the Act of the subsidy 3. Jacobi so refined â—â— If so If any such Definition passed in the Convocation it is no matter what was done by the Lords Spiritual in the upper House of Parliament for that I take to be his meaning as signifying nothing to the purpose Wherein Gods name may such an unstudied man as I find that definition not in the Acts of Convocation I am sure of that and where there was no such point debated and agreed upon all that occurs is to bee found onely in the preamble to the Grant of Subsidies made at a time when the Prelates and Clergy were amazed at the horror of that Divellish plot for blowing up the Parliament Houses with the King Prelates Peers Judges and the choicest Gentry of the Nation by the fury of Gun-powder But were the man acquainted amongst Civilians they would tell him that they have a Maxime to this Effect that Apices juris nihil ponuns The Titles and preambles to Laws are no definitions and neither bind the subject in his purse or Pater-noster 53. As for the rest of the Bishops I find two of them charged particularly and the rest in General Mountague charged from D. Prideaux to be merus Grammatius and Linsel charged from M. Smart to have spoken reproachfully of the first Reformers on the Book of Homilies But as Mountague was too great a Scholar to be put to School to D. Prideaux in any point of Learning of what kind soever so Linsol was a Man of too much sobriety to use those rash and unadvised speeches which he stands accused of And as for Mr. Smart the apology of D. Cosens speaks him so sufficiently that I may very wel save myself the labour of a Repetition More generally he tells us from a speech of the late Lord Faulkland that some of the Bishops and their adherents have destroyed unity under pretence of uniformity have brought in superstition and scandal under the title of Reverence and decency and have defiled our Churches by adoring our Churches c. p. 40. and not long after p 64. That they have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspition that in Gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way Some have evidently laboured to bring in an English though not a Romish Papacy not the out side and dress of it onely but equally absolute a blind dependence of the People on the Clergy and of the Clergy on themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the water But these are onely the evaporations of some discontents which that noble Orator had contracted He had been at great charges in accommodating himself with necessaries for waiting on his Majesty in his first expedition against the Scots in hope of doing service to his King and Country and gaining honour to himself dismist upon the Pacifiation as most of the English Adventurers without thanks of honour where he made himself more sensible of the neglect which he conceived he suffered under then possibly might consist with those many favours which both Kings had shewed unto his Father But no sooner had that noble soul dispers'd those clouds of discontent which before obscured it but he brake out again in his natural splendor and show'd himself as zealous an advocate for the Episcopal order as any other in that house witness this passage in a speech of his not long before the dismissing of the Scottish Army Anno 1641. viz. The Ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses
flyings out of the Nobility and People during the Minority of Lewis the 13th and the omni-regency of his Mother for I think there be not many other instances of it being no sufficient argument to prove the contrary And this you could not chuse but see though it seems you will not when you tell us within few lines after that the Government of France for want of Gratifying the Nobility and People with such Lawes and Liberties as were sit for them did become Tyrannical and if it be Tyrannical it must needs be absolute 7. You instance secondly in the rise and progress of the Norman liâ—e within this Kingdom concerning which you first suppose that their Monarchy here was founded on a Nobility or a Nobility and the People that is to say for so I am to understand you upon the love and good affections of the Nobility and people of England And secondly that being so founded they were to gratifie the Nobility or the Nobility and the people with such Laws and Liberties as are fit for them or else there Government in this Land had become Tyrannical But first the Monarchy of Normans was not founded here on the Nobility and the people conjunct or separate The greatest part of the Nobility were either lost or forfeited at the battel of Hastins And most of those that were not engaged in Battel were either outed of their Estates which were immediately distributed amongst the Normans according to their several Ranks qualities or forcedly to take them back on such terms and tenures as the Conquerors was pleased to give them And that he might make sure work with them he compelled some of them to fly the Land and wasted others in his Wars against the French so that the poor Remainders of them were both few in number and inconsiderable in power And then as for the common people they were so bridled by his Souldiers Garisoned up and down in several Castles some old and others of his own erection that they could never stir against him but the Souldiers were presently on their backs and though disperst in several places were ready to unite together upon all occasions Nor staid he here but to prevent all practises and contrivances which might be hammered in the night which the eye of no humane providence could be able to see into or discover he commanded that no light or fire should be seen in any of their Houses after the ringing of a Bell at eight of the clock called thence the Cover few or the Cur few Bell as it is called to this very day Which rigorous courses were held also by the Kings succeeding till there was no male Prince surviving of the Saxon race and that King Henryâ— had married a daughter of that line by means whereof the people seeing no hopes of bettering their condition in the change of time became obedient to that yoke which was laid upon them and looked upon their Kings of the House of Normandy as their natural Princes 8. Nor is your inference better grounded then your suposition the Norman Kings not gratifying the Nobility and people wiâ—h such Laws and Liberties as were fit for them for fear least otherwise the Government which you say we have known by experience and no doubt was seen by Eurypon might be thought tyrannical What you intend by these words we have known by experience as I am loth to understand so I am not willing to enquire What had been seen by Eurypon though you make no doubt of it I believe you know as little as I but what was practised by the Normans I may perhaps know as much as you and if I know any thing of them and of their affairs I must needs know this that the first Norman Kings did never Court the Nobility or the people of England by gratifying them with such Laws and Liberties as you speak of here but governed them for the most part by the Grand Customeiur of the Normans or in an arbitrary way as to them seemed best For though sometimes for quietness sake they promised the abolishing of Dane gelt and the restoring the Laws of King Edward the Confessor yet neither was the one abolished till the Raign of King Steven who came in upon a broken Title nor the other restored though often promised till the time of King John and then extorted from him by force of Arms so that by this account the Government of the first sinking of the Norman Race must become Tyrannical because they gratified not the people with such Laws and Liberties as in your judgment were fit for them For having gained the Magna Charta with the other Charta de Foresta in the time of King John and being frequently called to Parliaments by the Kings which followed they had as much as they had reason to expect in those early days Where by the way that I may lay all things together which relate to England I would fain know what ground you have for the position which you give us afterwards that is to say That King Henry 3. instituted his Parliament to be assistant to him in his Government Our ancient Writers tell us that Parliaments or Common Councils consisting of the Prelates Peers and other great men of the Realm were frequently held in the time of the Saxon Kings and that the Commons were first called to these great Assemblies at the Coronation of King Henry 1. to the end that his succession to the Crown being approved by the Nobility and People he might have the better colour to exclude his Brother And as the Parliament was not instituted by King Henry 3. so I would fain know of whom you learnt that it was instituted by him to be assistant to him in his Government unless it were from some of the Declaration of the Commons in the late long Parliament in which it is frequently affirmed That the fundamental Government of this Realm was by King Lords and Commons For then what did become of the Government of this Kingdom under Henry 3. when he had no such Assistants joyned with him or what became of the foundation in the intervals of following Parliaments when there was neither Lords nor Commons on which the Government could be laid And therefore it must be apparantly necessary either that the Parliaments were not instituted by King Henry 3. to be his Assistants in the Government and that the Lords and Commons were not a part of the foundation on which the Government is built or else that for the greatest space of time since King H. 3. the Kingdom hath bin under no Government at all for want of such Assistants and such a Principal part of the fundamentals as you speak of there The Government of such times must be in obeysance at the least as our Lawyers phrase it But because you make your Proposition in Geneneral terms and use the rise and progress of the Norman line for an instance onely I would fain learn who
bear part of the publick Government but whether chosen out of the Jethronian Judges or not we shall see anon Moses being dead and Josuah who succeeded in the supream Authority being also gathered by his Fathers the authority of the Sanhedrim dying also with them as your self confesseth the Ordinary Government returned again to the heads of the several Families as before in Aegypt the extraordinary being vested in those several Judges whom God raised up from time to time to free them from the power of those cruel Enemies from whose Tyranny they were not able otherwise to have freed themselves And in this state they stood till the time of Samuel when being vexed by the Philistines with conâ—inual Wars the Ark of God was taken not long before and their condition no less miserable under the times of Samuel then it was at the worst they desire to have a King to fight their Battails and to go in and out before them like to other Nations And that their future King might settle on the surer foundation he had not only the approbation of the Lord 1 Sam. 8. 22. and the acclamations of the people chap 10. v. 24. but the Heads and Chiefâ— of the several Families devolved their whole power upon him the motion being made to Samuel by the Elders of the people aswell in their own names as in the names of all the rest of the Tribes as appears 1 Sam. 8. 4. 19. Before this time that is to say after the deaths of Moses and Joshua who were Kings in fact though not in title the Israelites had no King to Raign over them but the Lord himself from whom they first received their Laws from whose mouth they received direction in all cases of difficulty and from whose hands they received protection in all times of danger And when they had any visible Judge or supream Governour God did not only raign in their persons in regard of that immediate vocation which they had from him but also of the gifts of the Spirit and the co-operation of his Grace and Power In which respect the Government of the Israelites during that interval of time is called by many learned Writers by the name of Theocratie or the immediate Government of the Lord himself And this the Lord himself not obscurely intimates when he said to Samuel They have not rejected thee but they have rejected me ne regnem super eos that I should not raign over them I know the general stream of Writers do understand these words as words of dislike and indignation in that the people seemed to be weary of his Government in their desire of having a King like to other Nations but I conceive with all due reverence unto those who opine the contrary that God spake these words rather to comfort Samuel whom he found much displeased and troubled at the Proposition of the Elders as if a greater injury had been offered to himself then was done to the Prophet then out of any dislike which he had of the matter For if he had disliked the matter that is that they should have a King like other Nations he neither would have fore signified it as a blessing on the seed of Abraham Gen. 17. or as prerogative of Judah Gen. 49. nor have foretold the people that when they should desire a King they should set him to be King over them whom the Lord their God shall chuse Deut. 17. nor would he have commanded Samuel to give them a King as they desired nor have directed him particularly to that very man whom he had designed for the Kingdom But on the contrary say you we find it otherwise in the Prophet Hosea where the Lord said unto the people That he had given them a King in his anger that is as you affirm in Saul and that he took him away in his wrath that is say you in the Captivity Hos. 13. 11. And to this purpose you alledge another passage in the same Prophet ch 8. v. 4. where it is said They have set up Kings and not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not But for all this your explication of the one Text and your application of the other are alike erroneous The Prophet Hosea lived in the time of Jerohoam son of Joah King of Israel and directed the words of his Prophesy to the people chiefly as they were separated and abstracted from the Realm of Israel And first beginning with the last it appears plainly by the verse foregoing that the words by you cited are addressed particularly to the house of Israel and it had been hard dealing in the Prophet to charge the ten Tribes with setting up of Kings but not by him had it been so understood of Saul as you say it was when it was the fault if it were a fault of all the twelve and therefore saith S. Hierome Potest hoc quod dicit ipsi regnaverunt non c. Etiam de Jeroboham accâ—pi filio Nabath de ceteris principibus qui ei in imperio successerint More positively some learned Writers in the Church of Rome by whom it is affirmed Hunâ— locum pertinere ad Reges Israel quorum primus erat Jeroboham qui tempore Reaboham filii Salamonis Regnum decem Tribuum invasit And to the same effect saith Deodati amongst the Protestants viz. The people of their own proper motion without enquiring after Gods will or staying for his command or permission have chosen and made Kings of their own heads separating themselves from the lawful Rule of David ' s posterity 1 King 11. 31. And then the meaning of the other Text will be plainly this I gave thee or I gave thee leave to have a King in mine anger that is to say in Jeroboham the Son of Nebat who by with-drawing the people from the worship of God to worship the golden Calves of Dan and Bethel is said to have made Israel sin and thereby plagued them irremediously without repentance into the heavy anger and displeasure of the Lord their God And I took him away in my wrath that is to say in the person of Hosheah the last King of Israel carried away captive together with the greatest part of his people into the land of Assyria the people being dispersed in the several Provinces of that Empire never returning since that time to their native Country nor having any King of their own to raign over them as afore they had Not to say any thing of many of the Kings of Israel treacherously slain by their own subjects out of an ambitious desire to obtain the Kingdom of whom it may be justly said That God took them away in his wrath before they had lived out their full time in the course of nature Nothing in these two Texts which relates to Saul and the captivity that is to say the Captivity of Babylon as you understand it Such is your play with holy Scripture when you speak as you
suppose like a Divine 20. But you have another use to make of the Prophet Hosea whose words you cite unto a purpose that he never meant namely to prove that Kings are not of Divine Right For having said that such Divines who will alwaies have Kings to be of divine right are not to be hearkned too seeing they affirm that which is clean contrary to Scripture you add that in this case said Hosea they have set up Kings and not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not But first these words are not spoken by the Prophet touching the institution of Kings in General but onely of a particular fact in the ten Tribes of Israel by with drawing themselves from the house of David and setting up a King of their own without consulting with the Lord or craving his approbation and consent in the business Secondly If it may be said that Kings are not of Divine Right and institution because God saith here by the Prophet that some Kings have been set up but not by him you have more reason to affirm that Kings are of Divine Right and institution because he saith in another place less capable of any such misconstruction as you make of this by me Kings reign All Kings are said to reign by God because all reign by his appointment by his permission at the least And yet some Kings may be truly said not to reign by him either because they are set up by the people in a tumultuous and seditious way against the natural Kings and Princes or else because they come unto their Crowns by usurpation blood and violence contrary to his will revealed and the establisht Laws of their severall Countrys Which Argument if it should be good we could not have a stronger against such Papists as hold alwayes for it seems no mater if they did hold so but somtimes that the Pope by Divine right is head of the universall Church then by showing them out of their own Histories how many Popes have raised themselves into that See either by open faction or by secret bribery and by violent and unjust intrusion Of whom it may be said and that not improperly that though they pretend to be Christs Vicars and the successors of St. Peter yet were they never plac't by Christ in St. Peters Chair Now to dispute from the persons to the power and from the unjust wayes of acquiring that power to the original right and institution of it is such a sorry piece of Logick as you blaming those who dispute from the folly of a people against an Ordinance of God For upon what ground else do you lay the foundation of the legall Government especially amongst the Hebrews but on the folly of the people p. 11. the imprudence and importunity of the people p. 14. upon which ground also you build the supream authority of the Judges who onely by the meet folly of the people came to be set up in Israel p. 13. But certainly if their desires to have a King were folly and imprudence in them it must be felix fatuitas a very fortunate imprudence and a succesful folly I am sure of that that people never live in a settled condition till they come to the Government of Kings For was it not by the fortunate conduct of their Kings that they exterminated the rest of the Canaanites broke the Amalekites in pieces and crusht the power of the Phylistins growing by that means formidable unto all their Neigbours Was it not by the power and reputation of their Kings that they gained some strong Towns from the Children of Ammon and enlarged their Territories by the conquest of some parts of Syria that they grew strong in shipping and mannaged a wealthy trade from Esion-Geber in the streights of Babel-Mandel to the Land of Ophir in the remotest parts of India Prosperities sufficient to justifie and endear such burdens as by the alteration of the Government might be said upon them 21. From such Divines in Generall as will always I must keep that word have Kings to be by divine Right you come to me at last in my own particular charging me that at a venture I will have Kings to be of Divine Right and to be absolute whereas in truth say you if Divine Right be derived unto Kings from these of the Hebrews onely it is most apparent that no absolute King can be of Divine Right And first to answer for my self for having sometime been a Parson I shall take leave to Christen my own Child first I think that I was never so rash nor so ill advised as to speak any thing at aventure in so great a point as the originall institution and divine right of Kings Secondly I am sure I have not so little studied the Forms of Government as to affirm any where in that Book against Calvin as you call it that all Kings be absolute The second Sect. of the sixt Chapter of that Book being spent for the most part in shewing the differences between conditional Kings and an absolute Monarch And Thirdly They must be as sorry Divines and as bad Historians as my self who ascribe the absolute Power or the Divine right of Kings to the first institution of a King amongst the Hebrews For who knows not if he know any thing in that kind that there were Kings in Aegypt and Assyria as also of Scycionia in Peleponesus not long after the Flood Kings of the Aborigines and the Trojan race in Italy in that of Athens Argos and Micenae amongst the Greeks of the Parthians Syrians c. in the Greater and of Lydia in the lesser Asia long time before the Raign of Saul the first King of the Hebrews all which were absolute Monarchs in their several Countrys And as once Tully said Nulla gens tam barbara that never Nation was so barbarous but did acknowledge this principle that there was a God so will you hardly find any barbarous Nation who acknowledge not the supream Government of Kings And how then all Nations should agree in giving themselves over to the power and Government of Kings I believe none cannot show me a better reason then that they either did it by the light of natural reason by which they found that Government to be fittest for them or that the first Kings of every Nation were the heads families that retained that paternal right over all such as descended of them as might entitle their authority to divine institution For proof whereof since you have such a prejudice against Divines you need look no farther then your self who tells us p. 12. That Kings no question where the ballance is Monarchical are of Divine right and if they be good the greatest blessing that the Government so standing can be capable of or if you will not stand to this then look on the first Chapter of Aristotles Politicks where he makes the Regall Government to stand upon no other bottom then paternal Authority Initio
who in the ninth Book of his Odyssees gives this Aphorism viz Vxori natis jus dicit quisque virorum That every man gives law to his wife and children And though the children come to such a condition both of age and fortunes that they are well enough able to live of themselves yet do they still continue servants to their natural parents for Iuâ—a patris naturalis minime solvantur sath the civil Lawyers and therefore are required by God to do the duty of servants till either their Fathers free consent or the Constitution of the Government under which they live shall lease them from it Secondly Admitting this natural liberty of all mankind which our late Polititians so much dream of yet man in his depraved nature is such a violent head-strong and unruly beast that he stands as much in need of a â—it or bridle as the Horse or Mule least otherwise he run headlong to his own destruction And therefore if he will not have a King he must be under the command of some other Government aut Râ—x auâ— Senatus habendus est as once Pacuviusâ—aid â—aid unto those of Capua and whether he live under the command of a King or the power of a Senate he must be servant unto either though otherwise he pretend to the ability of a self-subsistence for unto whomsoever you give your selves servants to obey his servants ye are unto whom ye obey saith the Great Apostle And then the question will be this whither the natural liberty of mankind may be best preserved under a Monarchical Government where he hath but one Master to observe whose tempeâ— and affections he may without much difficulty comply withal under the Government of a Senate or popular State where he must serve some hundredâ— of Masters to every one of which or to the greater part of which it is impossible for the wisest man to give any contentment Supposing Thirdly That the Qâ—estion be resolved in favour of the Popular Government yet every popular Government is to be ordered by some Lawes and every Law is the restraining of the use of this pretended liberty and binds the subject to observance Lex being so called a Ligando say the old Grammarians in all such cases concerning which the Laws are made by what power sover 24. But then say you these laws are of their own making not imposed by others which makes no alteration in the case at all my fetters not being the easier to me because they are of my own making then if they were made by the next Smith or provided for me by some others Besides which you your self have told us that all such Kings as claim by Scripture can be but regulated Monarchs and could of right enact no Law but by the suffrage of the people pag. 15. Which is as notable a preservative of the peoples liberty as ever was enjoyed by them in a popular Government O but say you the people in a popular Government have a power to chuse the Senate which they have not in chusing of their King and that the people with such a Senate have power to make what Laws they please and what can follow thereupon but that a Government so setled in a Senate and people must be accounted for a Divine Institution and be called the Government of God because it is the Government of Laws and not of men as you tell us pag. 11. But first how may we be assured That a Senate so established will not Lord it over the people with greater insolency and put more heavy pressures on them then ever they suffered under Kings for being many in number and all equal in power every one of them will endeavour to enrich himself and serve their turn upon the people there being no superiour power to controul them for it And next how may we be assured That the people I mean the whole body of the people have any power to chuse their Senate or that the Senate being chosen they have a power in voting with them for the making of Laws The Famous Senate of the Romans was ordained by Romulus their first King their number doubled by Tarquinius Priscus and a third hundred added by Brutus which continued in the first times of the Consular Government the people having no hand at all in the nomination nor was it otherwise at Athens though that was the most popular and Democratical Estate that ever was in the World the main body of the people in each Citty having as little to do in the choise of the Senate as they had in making of their Laws And first in the making of their Laws none of the City of Athens were permitted to vote or to give their voices but such as were accounted and enrolled for Citizens and none were either so enrolled or reckoned but the Chief of the City all Servants Labourers Handicrafts-men and Artificers which make the far greater part in every City not passing in account for Citizens and consequently having no voice nor power either in making Laws or electing Magistrates And secondly as it was in the Democratie of Athens so was it in the Timocratie of Rome the infinitly greatest part of the Inhabiâ—anâ—s having no hand at all in the making of Laws or in any other Act of Government of what kind soever For if a Law were past in Senate none of inferiour Order had a suffrage in it If it were made in the general Assembly of the Centuries those of the Nobility agreeing together might pass a Law without the rest and whither they agreed or not the Law was always pâ—ssed by the other Centuries before it came to the sixt consisting of the poorer sort which were never called unto the vote They did in number far exceed all the other five Centuries And finally if the Law were made in the Assembly of the Tribes as all the poorer sort which made up the far greater part of the City could never make any use of their voices in the Assembly of Centuries so the Nobility which made up the most considerable part of the City were quite excluded from having any suffrage or voice at all in the Assembly of the Tribes Admitting finally that all the Inhabitants of Rome Athens Syracuse c. had vote in the Election of their Magistrates and in the making of their Laws yet what makes this unto those multitudes of people which live dispersed in the Territories of those mighty Cities or in any of the remoter Provinces which were subject to them who being infinitely more in number then the Inhabitants of those several and respective Cities unto which they were subject had neither voice in the Election of the Senate or in the making of their Laws or in any matter of concernment to their several Nations but will they nill they they must submit to the will and pleasure of their great Masters in those Cities under whom they served though otherwise as able to subsist of themselves as any of
or be corrupted with pleasures Which if it were not thus the rule of Government prescribed by God in Deut. 17. must bâ— directly contrary unto the manner of the King that is to say the customary practise of those Kings in the course of their Government which God himself describes 1 Sam. 8. 17. And yet this manner of the King being told by Samuel unto the People was so farre from terrifying them from having a King as they desired that they cryed out the more vehemently Nay but we will have a King over us c. And which is more Samuel having again informed ihem at the auguration of Saul touching the manner of their King it follows in the Text â—hat Samuel wrote it in a Book and laid it up before the Lord 1 Sam. 20. 25. Which to what purpose it was done unless it were to serve for a standing measure both of the Kings power and the peoples obedience it is hard to say And if you look upon the practise of David and his posterity we shall find how little they conceived themselves to be circumscribed within those limits which you have assigned them of which you cannot take a better survey then what is given you by the excellent but unfortunate Sir Walter Rawleigh in his conjecture of the causes hindring the reunion of Israel with Judah during the troubles of that Kingdom Hist of the World Part. 1. cap. 19. Sect. 6. Where having first told us that the dis-affection of the ten Tribes if we look upon humane reason was occasioned by desire of breaking that heavy yoak of bondage wherewith Solomon had galled their necks discourseth further of the hinderances of a re-union of the Kingdoms in this manner following Surely saith he whosoever shall take the paines to look into those examples which are extant of the differing courses held by the Kings of Israel and Judah in the administration of Justice will find it most probable that upon this ground iâ— was that the ten Tribes continued so averse from the line of David as to think all adversity more tolerable then the weighty Scepter of that House For the death of Joab and Shimei was indeed by them deserved yet in that they suffered it without form of judgement they suffered like unto men innocent The death of Adoniah was both without judgement and without any crime objected other then the Kings jealousie out of which by the same rule of Arbitrary justice under which it may be supposed that many were cast away he would have slain Jeroboham if he could have caught him before he had yet committed any offence as appears by his confident return out of Aegypt like one that was known to have endured wrong having not offered any That which comes after in that Author being a recapitulation onely of the like arbitrary proceedings of Jehoram and other of the following Kings I forbear to add marvelling onely by the way that the Sanhedrim did not take these Kings to task for violating the standing rules of their Government laid down as you affirm in Deut. 17. and lay some corporall punishment on them as you say they might 27. This leads me on to the institution of the Sanhedrim their power and period In the two first whereof you place the greatest part of your strength for defence of Calvin though possibly you may be mistaken in all three alike In the first Institution and authority of the Jethronian Judges there is no difference between us The first thing you accept against is that I make the 70. Elders to be chosen out of the Iethronians concerning which you tell me that I may do you a greater favour then I can suddenly imagine to tell you really for what cause or upon what Authority my speech is so positive that is to say that God willed Moses to chuse the seventy Elders out of those that were chosen in the 18th of Exodus If I can do you any favour in this or in any thing else I shall not be wanting in any thing which I can do for your satisfaction And therefore you may please to know that my speech is grounded on those words in Numbers 11. v. 1. viz. And the Lord said unto Moses Gather unto me seventy men of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be Elders of the people and officers over them And bring them unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation that they may stand there with thee c. By which you may perceive that the 70. were not to be chosen out of the Elders onely but out of the Elders and Officers and other Officers at that time there were none to be found but those which were ordained by Moses in Exo. 18. to be Rulers of thousands Rulers of Hundreds Rulers of fifties and Rulers of â—ens for the determining of such smaller differences and suits in Law that might arise among the people And Secondly it is consonant with reason that it should be so that none should be admitted into the number of the 70. but such of whose integrity and abilities there had been some sufficient trial in the lower Courts Concerning which take here the Gloss of Deodati on the former words viz Elders viz. chosen out of the greater number of the other heads of the people Exo. 18. 25. that is to say Rulers of thousands Rulers of hundreds c. for to make up the great Councel or Senate Thou knowest viz. those thou hast thy self chosen into office or known and approved of in the exersising of it Would you have more for I am willing to do you any favour within my power then know that Ainsworth a man exceedingly well versed in all the learning of the Hebrews hath told me in his Notes or Comment on the former Text that by Officers in this place it seemeth to be meant of such Elders and Officers as were well known and had approved themselves for wisdome and good carriage for which they might with comfort be preferred to this high Senate For they that have Ministred well as the Apostle saith Purchased to themselves a good degree 1 Tim. 3. 13. And more particularly thus Our wise men have said that from the great Sanhedrim they sent into all the Land of Israel and made diligent enquiry whomsoever they found to be wise and afraid to sinne and meek c. They made him a Judge in his City And from thence they preferred him to the Gate of the Mountain of the House of the' Lord and from whence they promoted him to the Gate of the Court of the Sanctuary and from thence they advanced him to the great Judgement Hall for which he citeth Maimony one of the chief Rabbines in all that part in his Book of the Sanhedrim cap. 2. Sect. 8. which gives me very good assurance that the seventy were first chosen by Moses out of the Iethronian or Ruling Elders which were afterwards called Judges in the Gates because they were chosen out of that body in the times
zeal and ignorance A writing is subscribed on the 10th of May by Finch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littleton Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Banks Atturney General Witsield and Heath his Majesties Serjeants at the Law in which it was declared expresly that the Convocation being called by the Kings writ ought to continue till it was dissolved by the Kings Writ notwithstanding the dissolution of the Parliament But what makes this unto the purpose Our Author a more learned Lawyer then all these together hath resolved the contrary and throw it out as round as a boul that after the dissolution of the Parliament the Clarks of Diocesses and Cathedrals desisted from being publick persons and lost the notion of Representatives and thereby returned to their private condition The Animadvertor instanced in a convocation held in the time of Queen Eliz. An. 1585. which gave the Queen a Benevolence of two shillings in the pound to be raised on the Estates of all the Clergy by the meer censures of the Church without act of peachment Against which not able to object as to the truth and realty of it in matter of Fâ—ct he seems to make it questionable whecher it would hold good or not in point of Law if any turbulent Clergy-man had proved Recusant in payment and having slighted by the name of a blâ—ck â—wan a single instance of an unparliamented inpowred Convocation he imputes the whole success of that â—ash adventure rather unto the popularity of so Peerless a Princess the necessity of her occasions and the tranquillity of the times then to any efficacy or validity in the act it self And to what purpose all this pains but to expose the poor Clergy of the Convocation An. â—640 to the juster censure for following this unquestioned precedent in granting a more liberal benevolence to a gracious soveraign by no other authority then their own 34. If the â—ppealant still remain unsatisfied in this part of the Churches power I shall take a little more pâ—ins to instruct him in it though possibly I may tell him nothing which he knows not already being as learned in the Canons as in the common Law In which capacity I am sure he cannot chuse but know how ordinary a thing it was with Bishops to suspend their Clergy not onely ab officio but a Beneficio and not so onely but to sentence them if they saw just cause for it to a deprivation Which argues them to have a power over the property of the Clergy in their several Diocesses and such a power as had no ground to stand on but the authority of the Canons which conferred it on them And if our Author should object as perhaps he may that though the Canons in some cases do subject the Clergy not only to suspentions but deprivations of their cures and Benefices â—in which their property is concerned yet that it is not so in the case of the Laity whose Estates are not to be bound by so weak a thred I must then lead him to the Canons of 1603 for his satisfaction In which we find six Canons in a row one after another for providing the Book of Common Prayer the Book of Homilies the Bible of the largest Edition a Font for Baptism a fair Communion Table with a Carpet of Silk or other decent stuff to be laid upon it a Pulpit for Preaching of Gods Word a Chest to receive the alms for the Poor and finally for repairing of the Churches or Chappels whensoever they shall fall into any decay all these provisions and reparations to be made at the charges of the several and respective Parishes according to such rates as are indifferently assest upon them by the Church wardens Sides men and such other Parishioners as commonly convened together in the case which rates if any did refuse to make payment of they were compellable thereunto on a presentment made to the Ordinary by the said Church-wardens and other sworn Officers of the several and respective Parishes And yet those Canons never were confirmed by Act of Parliament as none of the like nature had been formerly in Queen Eliz time though of a continual and uncontroled practise upon all occasions The late Lord Primate in * a Letter more lately published by D. Barnard assures the honourable person unto whom he writ it that the making of any Articles or Canons at all to have ever been confirmed in that Kingdom by Act of Parliament is one of Dr. Heylyns Fancies And now it must be another of the Doctors Fancies to say that never any Articles or Canons had ever been confirmed by Act of Paliament in England though possible they may relate unto the binding of the subject in point of Poperty 35. But our Author hath a help at Maw and making use of his five fingers hath thrust a word into the proposition in debate between us which is not to be sound in the first drawing up of the issue The Question at the first was no more then this whether such Canons as were made by the Clergy in their Convocations and authorized by the King under the broad Seal of England could any further bind the subject then as they were confirmed by Act of Parliament And Secondly Whether such Canons could so bind either at such times as the Clergy acted their own Authority or after their admission to King Hen. the 8. in such things as concerned Temporals or temporal matters otherwise then as they were confirmed by national Customes that is to say as afterwards he expounds himselfe until they were consirmed by Act of Parliament Which points being so clearly stated by the Animadvertor in behalf of the Church that no honest evasion could be found to avoid his Argument the Appealant with his five fingers layes down life at the stake and then cryes out that the Animadvertor arrogates more power unto the Church then is due unto it either by the laws of God or man maintaining but he knows not where that Church men may go beyond Ecclesiastical Censures even to the limbs and lives of such as are Recusants to their Constitutions p. 2. so 53. And having taken up the scent he hunts it over all his Book with great noise and violence assuring us that such Canons were constantly checkt and controlled by the Laws of the Land in which the temporal Estate life and limbs of persons were concerned p. 2. fol. 27. As also that the King and Parliament though they directed not the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts in cases of Heresie which is more then his History would allow of yet did they order the power of Bishops over declared Hereticks without the direction of the Statute not to proceed to limb and life p. 2. fol. 45. And finally reduceth the whole Question to these two Propositions viz. 1. The proceedings of the Canon Law in what touched temporals of life limb and estate was alwayes limited with the secular Laws and national Customes of England And
he instanceth in that great contention between the Eastern and Western Bishops in the Primitive times about the day on which they were to celebrate the Feast of Easter I must needs say he could noâ— instance in a worse or find out any other example for this inconformity which could be more destructive of the hopes which he builds upon it For though he verily believeth as he saith he doth that God was equally honored by both by such as religiously observed it I cannot think but that he also doth believe that the contention much redounded to the dishonour of God the disgrace of Religion the renting of the Church into Schisms and Factions the grief of many sober and pious Christians and the great rejoycing of the Gentiles that difference begetting such animosities between the Churches and proceeding from one heat to another they fell at last to mutual Excommunications of the opposite parties One thing I must confess I am glad to hear of that is to say that God is honoured by such men who do religiously observe the Feast of Easter but what offence he may give by it to some others as I cannot guess so neither shall I make it any part of my care And therefore I shall leave him as he doth the Judges as best skilled in his own faculty to make good his own Acts. 44. Charged by the Animadvertor for making the distractions and calamities which befel this Kingdom to be occasioned primarily by sending a new Liturgie to the Kirk of Scotland he positively denies that he ever said any such word as that the Liturgie did primarily occasion the war with Scotland Rather saith he the clean contrary may by charitable Logick be collected from my words when having reckoned up a compliaction of heart burnings among the Scots I thus conclude Ch. Hist Lib. 11 163 Thus was the Scotish Nation full of discontents when this Book being brought amongst them bare the blame of their breaking forth into more dangerous designes as when the Cup is brim full the last though least superadded drop is charged alone to be cause of all the running over and then he adds Till then that the word primarily can be produced out of my Book let the Animadvertor be held primarily as one departed from truth and secondarily as a causless accuser of his brother I have stood behind the Curtain all this while to hear the Appealant rant himself out of breath without fear of discovery and that being done I shall take him gently by the hand and walk him to the beginning of the Scotish tumults where we find thus viz. But now we are summoned to a sadder subject from the suffering of a private person to the miseries and almost mutual ruine of two Kingdoms England and Scotland miseries caused from the sending of a Book of Service or new Liturgie thither which may sadly be tearmed a Rubrick indeed dyed with the blood of so many of both Nations slain on that occasion Ch. Hist Lib. 11. fol. 159. 160. And now I would fain know with what charitable Logick any thing else can be collected out of those words but that the miseries and calamnities which befel the Kingdom of England were occasioned primarily by sending a new Liturgie to the Kirk of Scotland For first in Marshaling the Causes of those miseries and ruines in which both Kingdoms were involved he makes the sending of the Book of Service and new Liturgie thither to be the prime cause both in order and nature of the whole disturbance Secondly he speakes plainer in these words to confute himself then had been formerly observed by the Animadvertor the Animadvertor charging him for no more then saying that those calamities and miseries were occasioned by sending the new Liturgie thither which now he plainly doth affirm to be caused by it And thirdly though the word primarily be not found in that passage yet he must be a very charitable Logician who will not find it in the order and method of Causes which are there offered to his view deduced they may be from his book though it cannot be produced out of it and therefore he may take the departure from the truth on himself alone and send for the accuser of the Brethren to keep him company 45. Concerning the release of the twelve Bishops for now he grants them to be twelve which before he did not he hopes to have me upon some advantage for denying them to have continued eighteen moneths in the Tower without any intermediate discharge pro tempore but not being willing out of his abundant charity to have me persist wilfully in any error he directeth me to be informed by Bishop Wrenn that none of them were released before May 6. And from that reverend Prelate I could as willingly take my Information if I had any convenient opportunity to ask the Question as from any other whosoever but being I am at such a distance I must inform my self as well as I can by my Lord of Canterbury who in his Breviate tels us this That on February 14. 1641. there came an Order that the twelve Bishops might put in bail if they would and that they should have their hearing upon Fryday and that on Wednesday the 15. they went out of the Tower Assuredly my Lord of Canterbury cannot be thought to be so ignorant in the affairs of his Brethren being then fellow Prisoners with him as not to understand their successes whether good or bad or to be of such a careless Pen as to commit so gross an error in matter of fact especially in such things as were under his eye and therefore I resolve as before I did till I shall see some better reason to the contrary then I have done hitherto that there was a general Order for the discharge of the twelve imprisoned Bishops on Feb. 14. and that they were remanded back again by the power and importunity of the House of Commons upon the reasons formerly laid down in the Animadversions 46. And here I would have left the Bishops to enjoy their liberty but that I am called back again to congratulate with the Archbishop of York for holding the Deanry of Westminster in commendam on so good an account I thought till now that he received it as a favour not an act of Justice but the Appealant hath enlightned my understanding with a clearer notion telling me that King Charls confirmed that Deanry upon him for three years in lieâ— of the profits of his Archbishoprick which the King had taken sedâ— vacante If so his Majesty must be either more just or more indulgent to Bishop Williams then he had been to Bishop Neil his old trusty Servant whom I find not to be gratified with any such commendam or compensation either when he was promoted from Durham to receive Winchester or translated from Winchester to the See of York and yet the King had taken the vacant profits of those Sees for a longer time that is to say
like and reckoned him for a reproach to the holy improvements of the Sabbath by justifying his Disciples in plucking off the ears of Corn upon that day commanding the man whom he had cured of his diseases to take up his bed and walk though upon the Sabbath and finally giving this general Aphorism to his Disciples That the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath Then which there could be nothing more destructive of those superstitions wherewith that day was burthened by the Scribes Pharisees and thereby more accommodated to the ease of the Ox and Asse then to the comfort and refreshment of the labouring man might not the latter Rabines among the Jews defend themselves in those ridiculous niceties about the keeping of that Sabbath Queen-Sabbath as they commonly call it for which they stand derided and condemned by all sober Christians by reckoning them for such holy improvements as D. Bound and his Disciples have since encogitated and devised to advance the dignity of the Lords day Saints Sunday as the people called it in times of Popery to as high a pitch Restore the Lords day to that innocent freedom in which it stood in the best and happiest times of Christianity and lay every day fresh burthens upon the consciences of Gods people in your restraints from necessary labours and lawful pleasures which neither we nor our forefathers have been able to bear though christned by the name of holy improvements The coming out of Barbours's Book Printed and secretly dispersed Anno 1628. but walking more confidently abroad with an Epistle Dedicatory to his Sacred Majesty about five years after declare sufficiently what dangerous effects your holy improvements had produced if not stopt in time and stopt they could not be by any who maintain your Principles that poor man being then deceived into the errour of a Saturday Sabbath a neer neighbour of this place hath been of late by the continual inculcating both from the Pulpit and the Press of the perpetual and indispensable morality of the fourth Commandment as it hath been lately urged upon us But so much hath been said of this by others and elsewhere by me that I forbear to press it further nor indeed had I said thus much had you not forced me upon it for my own defence 18. And for those most unjust as well as uncharitable speeches those bitter reproaches as you call them afterwards which you charge upon me in reference to my brethren whom I take for adversaries when you have told me what they are and of whom they are spoken and where a man may chance to find them I shall return a more particular answer to this calumny also but till then I cannot In the mean time where is that ingenuity and justice you so much pretend too you make it foul crime in me not easily to be washed away with the tears of repentance that I have used some tart expressions which you sometimes call bitter reproaches sometimes unjust and uncharitable speeches against my brethren many of them being my inferiours and the best but my equals and take no notice of those odious and reproachful Attributes which you have given unto your Fathers all of them being your superiours de facto though perhaps you will not grant them to be such de jure You call me in a following passage the Primipilus by which I finde you have studied Godwin's Antiquities or chief of the defenders of the late turgid or persecuting sort of Prelates whither with greater scorn to me or reproach to them it is hard to say the merit of the accusation we shall see anon I note here only by the way in S. Paul's expression that that wherein you judge another you condemn yourself seeing you do the same things and perhaps far worse But to return unto my self take this in general that though I may sometimes put vinegar into my inck to make it quick and opulative as the case requireth yet there is nothing of securrility or malice in it nothing that savoureth of uncharitableness or of such bitter reproaches as you unjustly tax me with But when I meet with such a firebrand as M. Burton whose ways you will not seem to justifie in that which followeth I hope you cannot think I should pour Oyl upon him to encrease the flame and not bring all the water I had to quench it whither soul or clean Or when I meet with such unsavoury peices of wit and mischief as the Minister of Lincoln Diocesse and the Church Historian would you not have me rub them with a little salt to keep them sweet The good Samaritan when he undertook the care of the wounded passenger is said to have poured into his wounds both Oyl and Wine that is to say the Oyl to cherish and refresh it and the Wine to cleanse it Oleum quo foveatur Vinum quo mordeatur as I have read in some good Authors he had not been a skilful Chyrurgion if he had done otherwise one plaister is not medcinal to all kind of sores some of which may be cured with Balm when others more corrupt and putrified do require a lancing but â—o I shall not deal with M. Baxter nor have I dealt so with others of his perswasion insomuch that I have received thanks from the Ministers of Surrey and Buckingham shire in the name of themselves and of that party for my fair and respectful language to them both in the Preface to my History of the Sabbath and the Conclusion to the same 19. But you go on and having given me some good councel which I shall thank you for anon you tell me that besides those many bitter reproaches of my Brethren which I take for adversaries I rise unto such bloody desires of hanging them as the better remedy then burning their Books For this you point us to the History of the Sabbath pag. 2 pag. 254. and in the general Preface to Ecclesia vindicata Sect. 8. In which last place we find it thus That partly by the constancy and courage of the Arch-Bishop Whitgift who succeeded Grindal Anno 1583. the opportune death of the Earl of Leicester their chief Patron Anno 1588. and the incomparable pains of judicious Hooker Anno 1595. but principally by the seasonable execution of Copping and Thacker hanged at Saint Edmonds bury in Suffolke for publishing the Pamphlets of Robert Brown against the Book of Common-prayer they became so quier that the Church seems to be restored to some hopes of peace Nothing in this that savoureth of such bloody desires as you charge upon me I am sure of that and there is little more then nothing in the other passage where speaking of D. Bound's Book of Sabbath-Doctrines and the sad consequents thereof I add that on the discovery of it this good ensued that the said Books were called in by Arch Bishop Whitgift in his Vâ—sitations and by several Letters and forbidden to be Printed and made common by Sir
John Popham Lord Chief Justice at the Assizes held at Bury and thereunto I subjoyned these words viz. Good remedies indeed had they been soon enough applied yet not so good as those which formerly were applied to Thacker and his fellow Copping in the aforesaid Town of Bury for publishing the Books of Brown against the Service of the Church But here is no mention not a syllable of burning the said Books of Sabbath-Doctrines but only of suppressing and calling in Which makes me apt enough to think that you intended that for a private nip relating to a Book of mine called Respondit Petrus which was publiquely voyced abroad to have been publiquely burnt in London as indeed the burning of it was severely prosecuted though itscaped the fire a full account whereof being too long to be inserted in this place I may perhaps present you with in a place by it self And secondly what find you in that latter passage which argueth me to be guilty of such bloody desires as I stand accused for in your Letter Cannot a man report the passages of former times and by comparing two remedies for the same disease prefer the one before the other as the case then stood when the spirit of sedition moved in all parts of the Realm but he must be accused of such bloody desires for makeing that comparison in a time of quietness in a time of such a general calm that there was no fear of any such tempest in the State as did after follow If this can prove me guilty of such bloody desires the best is that I stand not single but have a second to stand by me of your own perswasion for in the same page where you find that passage viz. page 254. you cannot chuse but find the story of a Sermon Preached in my hearing at Sergeants Inn in Fleetstreet in which the Preacher broach'd this Doctrine That temporal death was at this day to be inflicted by the Law of God on the Sabbath breaker on him who on the Lord's day did the works of his daily calling with a grave application to my Masters of the Law that if they did their ordinary works on the Sabbath day in taking fees and giving counsel they should consider what they did deserve by the Law of God The man that Preached this was Father Foxly Lecturer of S. Martins in the Fields Superintendent general of the Lecturers in S. Antholin's Church and Legate à Latere from the Grandees residing at London to their friends and agents in the Countrey who having brought these learned Lawyers to the top of the Ladder thought it a high piece of mercy not to turn them off but there to leave them either to look after a Reprieve or sue out their Pardon This Doctrine you approve in him for you have passed it quietly over qui tacet consentire videtur as the saying is without taking any notice of it or exceptions against it and consequently may be thought to allow all those bloody uses also which either a blind superstition or a fiery zeal shall think fit to raise But on the other side you find such bloody desires in the passages before remembred which cannot possibly be found in them but by such a gloss as must pervert my meaning and corrupt my text and it is Male dicta glossa quâ corrumpit textum as the old Civilians have informed us 20. But to come nearer to your self May we be sure that no such bloody desires may be found in you as to the taking away of life in whom we find such merciless resolutions as to the taking away of the livelyhood of your Christian Brethren The life of man consists not only in the union of the soul and body but in the enjoyment of those comforts which make life valued for a blessing for Vita non est vivere sed valere as they use to say there is as well a civil as a natural death as when a man is said to be dead in law dead to the world dead to all hopes of bettering his condition for the time to come and though it be a most divine truth that the life is more then food and the body then rayment yet when a man is plundered both of food and cloathing and declared void of all capacities of acquiring more will not the sence of hunger and the shame of nakedness be far more irksome to him then a thousand deaths How far the chiefs of your party have been guilty of these civil slaughters appears by the sequestring of some thousands of the Conformable and Established Clergy from their means and maintainance without form of Law who if they had done any thing against the Canons of the Church or the Laws of the Land were to be judged according to those Laws and Canons against which they had so much transgressed but suffering as they did without Law or against the Law or by a Law made after the fact aâ—ainst which last his Highness the late LORD PROTECTOR complaineth in his Speech made in the year 1654. they may be truly said to have suffered as Innocents and to be made Confessors and Martyrs against their wills Either they must be guilty or not guilty of the crimes objected If they were guilty and found so by the Grand Inquest why were they not convicted and deprived in due form of Law If not why were they suspended sine die the profits of their Churches sequestered from them and a Vote passed for rendring them uncapable of being restored again to their former Benefices Of this if you do not know the reason give me leave to tell you The Presbyterians out of Holland the Independents from New England the beggerly Scots and many Trâ—n châ—r-Chaplains amongst our selves were drawn together like so many Vultures to seek after a prey for gratifying of whom the regular and established Clergy must be turned out of their Benefices that every Bird of r pine might have its nest some of them two or three for failing which holding by no other Tenure then as Tenants at will they were necessitated to performe such services as their great Patrons from time to time required of them 21. Now for your part how far you are and have been guilty of these civil slaughters appears abundantly in the Preface which is now before us in which you do not only justifie the sequestring of so many of the regular and established Clergy to the undoing of themselves and their several families but openly profess That you take it to be one of the charitablest works you can do to help to cast out a bad Minister and to get a better in the place so that you prefer it as a work of mercy before much sacrifice Which that it may be done with the better colour you must first murther them in their fame then destroy them in their fortunes reproaching them with the Atributes of utterly insufficient ungodly unfaithful scandalous or that do more harm then good